BOISE (ID)
CBS 2

October 19, 2019

The Vatican in Rome has dismissed a former Boise Catholic priest from the clerical state after hearing that he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, for possessing and distributing child pornography, Saturday morning.

Last December, William Thomas Faucher pleaded guilty to four child exploitation charges and a single count of possession of a controlled substance back in September.

The official term for the dismissal is called laicizes, a decision which the Vatican calls “serious and unappealable”.

The decision came in a letter from Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, secretary to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the Diocese of Boise Bishop Peter F. Christensen and states that Faucher’s case was presented to Pope Francis, after which the Pope decreed that Faucher is involuntarily laicized (removed) from the clerical state.